


soulkiller

by calcelmo



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Infidelity, Spoilers, Temperance Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:15:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28344495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcelmo/pseuds/calcelmo
Summary: Voicemail [1]Panam PalmerReally? You're just gonna avoid me? Of course you would, you fucking coward.Here's a bit of advice for you, Johnny. Enjoy your new lease on life. 'Cause it's not gonna last long. I'm serious.Believe me when I say I'm going to find you, you fucking psychopath - wherever you're hiding. And when I do, I'm gonna rip V out of your head. Don't ask me how, but so far I'm counting on sheer will.You know what you are, Johnny? A parasite. A fucking tapeworm! You hear me?! Enjoy the little time you have left.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Male V, Johnny Silverhand/Panam Palmer, Johnny Silverhand/V, Panam Palmer/Male V, Panam Palmer/V
Comments: 17
Kudos: 148





	soulkiller

**Author's Note:**

> I got Temperance first time around and it almost killed me. But Panam's voicemail was absolutely perfect. I couldn't stop thinking about this idea, and it took on a life of its own. Please comment if you enjoyed - I have very ambitious future plans for this concept, but I'm not sure if I'll pursue them.

It takes months. 

He’s gotten hundreds of miles away from N.C, and he’s thinking about going farther. No matter where he ends up, the city always feels too close - V’s phone buzzing with messages, radio reports, road signs telling him exactly how far it is to hell. 

He promised himself he wouldn’t mess around with V’s body - no more drugs, no more unprotected sex, no more smoking and self-medicating. These things are easier said than done, though, and after hearing Kerry’s new single, he needed a drink.

He’d know Kerry’s voice anywhere. It was the lyrics that had hit him so hard. The sentimental old bastard had taken a little inspiration from an old friend. 

_For years we reigned_

_Nobody in the city didn’t know our name_

_And when we’re gone_

_Our bodies may decay but the legend remains_

Johnny’s never been sung about before. He could name the subject of everything he’d ever written - Alt, Rogue, the band, the joytoy he’d lost his virginity to - but he could never have imagined what it felt like to recognize someone’s lyrics were dedicated to you.

He should have known Ker was always going to be okay. He winces when he thinks about all the times he’d screamed you’re nothing without me, just because he was so shit scared of being left alone. For a long time, it seemed like Kerry believed him. But he’d wised up in the end, just like everybody else.

Johnny hasn’t written anything in a while. He sits and strums his shitty thrift store guitar, but words just won’t come to mind.

Everything feels so quiet without V. Too quiet. 

He pays for the bottle of tequila and heads out to his truck. It was third hand, rusted and ancient, but it had taken him where he needed to go. He had the eddies for more, for anything he wanted, but he didn’t want to waste V’s hard earned merc money on cars and girls. 

Since he left the city, he’s lived humbly. Sleeping in his truck, taking odd jobs here and there just to pass the time. Never staying in one place for more than a few days. He’s played in a couple of bars, getting back into the rhythm of it. Still trying to figure out what he’s going to do with the gift of life, stuck in the body of the one who gave it. 

The rush he gets from his newfound freedom hasn’t worn off yet, but when it does, he’s going to need purpose. Sometimes, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, or the window, or the water, and he’s struck by just how much his face doesn’t match what’s inside.

Rogue called V ‘cute’, and he kind of understood what she meant. The kid wasn’t exactly small, or sweet, but he had this general air of optimism, a love for life that Johnny can’t reprogram, no matter how much misery he forces the body through. He’s stuck with laugh lines and freckles and a gap between his teeth that makes his whole face light up when he smiles. But despite how wrong it feels, how jarring it is to look out through someone else’s eyes, he’s glad that V is still in living memory for as long as he’s around. 

He settles down in the car, messes with the radio while he unscrews the cap of the bottle with one hand. 

That’s when he feels the cold muzzle of a gun pressed to his cheek. 

“Told you I’d find you,” says Panam Palmer.

* * *

Johnny’s Malorian Arms is in the glove compartment. He starts to calculate if he could possibly reach it before Panam blows his brains out. 

When he hears the safety click off, he decides on ‘no’. So he does the only thing he can think of. He closes his eyes, and searches for V’s memories of Panam. He remembers the way he looked at her, the contortion of muscle, and the pitch of his voice. Feelings that don’t belong to him settle like lead in his stomach, reminding him just how deeply and freely V loved. It hurts. It hurts, because he’s tried to forget, but the wound’s been reopened and the guilt is pouring out. 

He copies the scene like it’s a collection of data. 

_“Panam…?”_

Soft, questioning; fear mingling with fondness, all hints that this can’t be Johnny. For a moment, it works. 

“You bastard,” she says, under her breath, and hits him so hard, the pain sparks multi-colored like a broken monitor behind his eyes.

* * *

He wakes with a throbbing pain in the side of his head. Shielding his vision from the neon light of the sign, OPEN 24 HOURS, he tastes copper from the bite mark on the inside of his cheek. 

Panam cuts a stern silhouette in the passenger side. She’s holding his iron, and he restrains himself from snatching it away, one of the few remnants to reassure him that Johnny Silverhand ever walked the earth. 

“What do you want?” he asks her, careful not to raise his voice or make any sudden movements. He’s well aware that V’s delightful young input has a mighty short temper.

Panam leans closer. He smells smoke and oil on her, and memories of close encounters that weren’t his flood into his mind. 

“I want justice,” she tells him. “You don’t deserve to live after what you did.”

“And what’s that?” he snaps; terse, subdued. He’s hyper-aware of the gun poised millimetres away from his delicate skull. Never notorious for his tact, he tries to focus on marshalling his racing adrenaline into talking her down. 

“You killed V. You betrayed him and you took over his body, his life. You’re the biggest fucking scumbag I’ve ever met.”

Johnny watches someone fill up the tank and go into the store to pay. He thinks about trying to attract attention, but a voice that sounds suspiciously like V shoots that down in flames the minute it enters his head. 

Maybe he should have told her what really happened. Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference. But he couldn’t have predicted how sick it would make him to hear someone accuse him of betraying V. 

“Put the gun down, Panam. You’re not gonna zero me because this is your boyfriend’s skinsuit, and if you ever want to get him back, it’s not gonna look good if he’s six foot in the ground.” 

“Get him back how?”

It’s too eager, too shaky. The sudden realization that Panam has nothing new to fix this drags him under like an anchor round his neck. 

His voice is mirthless when he retorts. “You’re telling me you don’t have any new information? That you came all this way just to put a bullet in my head?”

Panam exhales, shifting back, and with her, the gun. No answer. Johnny breathes a silent sigh of relief, and finally lets himself turn to look at her.

She looks awful. Dark shadows under her twitching eyes; that wild, hunted look. Her hair is so matted with dust it’s a shade lighter. There’s a rip running down the length of one jacket sleeve.

“What are you trying to do?” he asks her, bluntly. 

Panam averts her eyes, shifting to tuck her knees up against her chin. She flicks the safety back on the gun but still keeps the comforting weight of it clutched in her hand. 

Her blatant distrust is something he’s recognized in almost everyone he’s ever held dear. Friends, family, fans - they loved him, but they never trusted him. 

Except for V. 

V, who saw the good in everyone, and paid the ultimate price. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve it, but V had trusted him so implicitly, so unconditionally, that Johnny could never even bear to think about letting him down. 

And yet... he’d done just that. He’d promised to get them to the other side, and all he managed to do was flatline the two people in the world he cared about the most. 

If Panam thought he deserved to die, then maybe she was right.

“I went back to Night City. I told everyone what happened,” she tells him, sullen. 

“You don’t even know what happened,” Johnny says, coldly.

Panam scoffs. “What is there to know, other than the fact that you’re still here leeching off someone else’s body?”

“I did everything I could to save him.”

“Even if I believed that for five seconds - which I don’t - do you really think you deserve to live, and he doesn’t?”

Johnny closes his eyes. She’s like a mosquito, buzzing around, trying to get under his skin, and he’s ashamed to say it’s working. Knowing that V and Rogue are dead because of him, but he got away unscathed, a new shot at life, having done nothing to deserve it... 

“Are you listening to me?” Panam hisses, jolting him out of his reflection.

“It’s impossible not to,” he deadpans.

“Spin your bullshit, then. Tell me how heroic and selfless you were.”

“I got us into Mikoshi. Did everything we were supposed to do. But it wasn’t enough. Alt told me the damage was irreparable, that there was no way for V to survive even if she did separate us from each other.”

“How fucking convenient.”

“Convenient, how? Do you think you’re the only person who cared about V? Do you think we could have survived as long as we did by scheming and plotting and trying to kill each other?”

“All I know is that V trusted you to help him, and he ended up dying because of it.”

“V wanted this. He didn’t want us both to-”

“Oh, please-”

Johnny grins, and she hates it, because he’s using V’s face. V, whose smile is supposed to be crooked and wide, not the small, cold thing with too many teeth that Johnny twists his lips into.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Johnny tells her. “You don’t know him at all. Not like I do.”

“Oh, and you knew him so well, you let him _die,”_ Panam yells, voice cracking. She’s so caught up in her rage and grief that she wants to break bones, but she knows she couldn’t lay a hand on him while he’s wearing the body of the man she loves. 

“It was the only way, Panam. That, or we died together. Somehow, I can’t see you being too happy about that either.”

“I would rather you weren’t walking around pretending to be him!”

“I’m not-”

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare try and pretend this is okay.”

Johnny snorts and makes it clear he’s not engaging any more. Cuts her off, just like that, breaking off another piece of her heart every time she sees the familiar face turn away.

Panam hauls the door open to get some air, slamming it behind her. The gas station is empty, and a freezing wind blows leaves through the deserted forecourt. 

She leans against the truck and counts down from a hundred, willing herself to cool off before she does something she’ll seriously regret. Like always, she fights the urge to run away. It’s the nomad instinct inside her, urging her to escape from the source of her anger. 

V would understand.

The thought brings tears to her eyes. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her; she never used to cry. Made a point of it, trying to be tough. But meeting V was the best thing that ever happened to her, and she doesn’t care how corny that sounds. Having him ripped away from her isn’t something she’s coped well with. The world dangled happiness at her like a carrot on a stick, and pulled it away just when she’d allowed herself to hope it was real. 

The driver’s side opens. She’s already aiming at him the second she heard the lock. 

“Relax,” Johnny mutters. “You’re on a fuckin’ hair trigger. I don’t know what you must have heard about me.”

“That you’re a selfish, misogynistic piece-of-shit terrorist and anyone associated with you winds up dead.”

Johnny bites his tongue. She sounds like Rogue. He feels suddenly exhausted, at the end of his tether. He doesn’t want to run any more, and he doesn’t want to be reminded of all the things he’s done, everyone who ever lost their lives because of him.

"When I... when me and V..."

Panam screws up her face, and it's cute, but it also reminds Johnny that there's fifty years between them.

"Were you there? Did you see?"

Johnny scoffs. "Saw everything, didn't I?"

Panam goes quiet. Johnny glances at her, but she just keeps scowling up at the stars. 

"V saw some shit too. Shit I'd rather he hadn't."

Then she does look at him. Curiosity overrides disdain, glittering in her eyes. "Oh yeah?"

"I had a girl. Couldn’t believe she was still around, after all this time, after ‘Saka tower. I had to see her.”

"And you used _V's body?"_

"Panam, c'mon. You think that was fun for me? You think I was at the height of my seduction prowess wearing the face of some babyfaced merc with green bangs?" 

"Hey, shut your mouth. V's way more handsome than you ever were." 

"Sure." Johnny smirks, and then he sighs. "Anyway, it didn't matter. She wasn't really into it. You can't just waltz back into people's lives after fifty years of absence." 

"Mm. I get the impression that fifty years wouldn't be anywhere near enough time to recover from you." 

"You're charming as ever."

They lapse back into quiet. 

“Your girlfriend,” Panam asks quietly. “It was Rogue, wasn’t it?”

Johnny wants to laugh, sharp and bitter, but he swallows it down. He’s never been one for sentiment, but Rogue’s death is still weighing heavily on his heart. When he’d said she was the one, he meant it. He might have fucked around for years, he might have carried on doing it. But there was no one who’d ever mean as much as she did. He could only hope that she’d known, before Smasher reached past her skin and tore out her insides. 

“Yeah,” he says, simply. 

Only then does he look down and see the veins on the backs of his hands standing out, fists clenched, nails cutting into his palms. He glances up in time to see Panam avert her eyes. 

“I knew Rogue,” she tells him uselessly. She doesn’t realize how comforting it is to be reminded that Rogue didn’t just disappear from existence, wiped from the history books. She’ll still get her namesake cocktail. 

“No one gets through life without losing somebody,” Johnny sighs. He dangles the bottle of tequila out in front of her, and after a moment’s hesitation, she takes it.

They rest their weight against the side of the truck, watching the store owner count ennies, listening to the rumble of cars passing them on the freeway.

“I spoke to Nix. He has a theory that if we… if you… if you managed to extract some of your DNA, someone could recreate your body through cybernetic synthesis.”

“And how would I do that? My body’s rotting bones in a junkyard. There’s nothing left.”

“Isn’t it worth a try?”

“Why?” Johnny asks, blankly. “V’s body can’t survive without my cells holding it together. Even if you found a way to get him back, he couldn’t just move back in like a damn hermit crab. The brain’s damaged, beyond repair.” 

“I don’t know what a hermit crab is. But I know the rest, Johnny. I just can’t stand to see you walking around in his body.”

He’s about to say something cruel, before she adds, “And... don’t you wish you could be yourself again?”

He shrugs, and puts his hand out for her to pass him the bottle. He takes his time to let the tequila burn its way down his throat. “I don’t know, Panam. I don’t think I’m ready to let him go.”

When he looks at her, she’s looking right back. If it’s possible, her frown seems now to be borne of concern, as opposed to the total disdain he’s used to.

He notices the way she keeps stealing glances, wanting to pretend she’s looking at V instead of the parasite puppeteering his skeleton. Just something to tide her through the loneliness she’s got to look forward to when she finally gives up on chasing a pipe dream; a dead man, a stream of binary code scrolling through cyberspace. 

He understands. He’s spent a long time looking in the mirror; waiting for that sense of relief to wash over him, but it never does, because V isn't really looking back at him. 

He crosses his arms, fed up with the whole damn gig. "I could really use a smoke right now,” he mutters. 

“Not your body to fuck with,” she answers shortly.

“Didn’t say I was going to. Lighten up, you frigid bitch.”

Panam doesn’t even flinch at this point. She rubs tiredly at her eyes, sore from the rushing wind.

“You look terrible. When’s the last time you slept?”

“I…”

“Want to crash here? Got blankets,” he offers, gruffly.

Panam stares at the ground, scowling so hard it’d probably tremble beneath her if it could. “Fine,” she says, addressing the tarmac, tone so sour you’d think she was the one doing Johnny a favor. 

He wants to ask what she’s been doing these past few months. Where the rest of the Aldecaldos are. But Panam’s one of those horses you can only lead to water, and if he doesn’t want to find himself staring down the barrel of her revolver, he’s going to do his level best to keep his mouth shut. 

He tosses her a blanket and climbs into the back of the truck. It’s not what you’d describe as comfortable, and it’s deathly cold, but Johnny’s slept on floors so dirty they ought to be cordoned off by the CDC. 

However he imagined this night ending, it wasn’t with V’s chick tucked up in the back of his car right after she pulled a gun on him. 

“How’d you get in?”

“You didn’t lock the door.”

He blinks, and hears her snicker. It’s hard to see anything in the dark, with the only light spilling in from the windshield. 

“Ow. Fuck. What is that?”

“I don’t know. Wait, no, it’s probably my guitar. Just put it on the front seat.”

She gives a noncommittal grunt, reaching up to dump the guitar unceremoniously where directed. His eyes start to adjust to the darkness, and he can make out some of her features obscured by shadow as she struggles to make herself comfortable in the confined space of the car. 

“I grew up on Samurai, you know,” she mutters. She sounds mad about it.

“You did?” 

“The clan worships rockerboys. Freedom, family, yadda yadda.” 

“What was your favorite?”

“None of them. Your music sucked.”

“Ouch.”

He punches his pillow into shape a few times and settles back against it with a long-suffering sigh. His breath turns into a puff of icy air, signalling the drop in temperature. There’s a motel nearby, warm bed and warm food, but he can’t see Panam going in for that, not as skittish as she is. 

“Saul told me to call him, when I… if I found you.”

He spreads his arms in a ‘be my guest’ kind of gesture. 

“Can’t tell him I didn’t kill you,” she shakes her head. “It was all I talked about.”

“So why haven’t you?”

“I just... can’t.” Panam’s voice is weary and faint. “Not while you look like that. I know that you’re not really V, but it’s just not registering in my brain. And… it’s not as if you’re completely different. You were still part of him, when we met.”

Johnny sits up, tries to find her in the dark. He forces the words out on the tip of his tongue, any hesitation testament to the fact that he’s changed. Time was, he never thought before he spoke. 

“I could try to pretend.”

Panam’s gaze snaps up to his; horrified. “Is that a fucking joke?” she manages, totally disbelieving. 

Johnny says nothing, just meets her eyes, measured and patient. 

She never realized until now that he had the capacity for subtlety, for gentleness. It makes her guts twist into knots, wringing out nerves, dripping heartache. She holds her breath while her mind races on. 

Would that be okay? What would V think? Could she stand it, knowing who’s really under his skin?

She shakes her head, opens her mouth to say something, and then closes it again. 

Johnny just pulls the blanket tighter around himself, resting his head, letting his eyes fall shut. He tried. He tried to give her what little peace he could. Maybe V would hate him for it, for using his hands to touch his girl. But he honestly believed V would want him to offer any sort of comfort he could. They’d been tangled up in each other, shared a body, shared Rogue, shared Panam; would it really be crossing a line to do this? 

_It doesn’t matter,_ comes the voice in his head. Not the one he misses. _V’s dead._

Then, from the dark. Almost inaudible. Panam says, “I miss him so much.”

He wishes he could pretend it was just a classic case of female hysteria, borne of nothing but hormones and melodrama. But he feels the same way. Every waking moment trying to survive the day without the people you loved. And what for? It never ends, never slows down or fades away. Their loss is like a bullet wound that never closes up; a ring of ragged scar tissue that hurts to touch.

"That's your problem, Panam," he tells her. "You think you're the only person in pain. The only person who'll ever do anything about it."

"Shut up," she hisses, and then decides she'll do it for him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and kissing him, hard.

This, he can deal with.

Quacks would have a field day unpicking Johnny's myriad sexual experiences, the majority of which weren't triggered by fluffy feelings of love and care. He knows better than anyone that the strongest emotions become indistinguishable from each other. Grief, joy. Love, hate. 

There’s something deeply twisted about fucking someone when you know they’re pretending you’re a different person. 

He tries to let things go at her pace, acutely aware of any pressure he’s putting on her. This can't turn into another black mark against his name. All this years floating in the void, wired into Mikoshi, he never could have imagined how bleak his reputation ended up becoming. 

She takes his hand and tucks it under her shirt, slides it up until his palm rests against her breast. He feels her breathing shallow, ribs pressed against his.

"You sure?" he says, hoarse and hushed.

Panam shivers. "No." She sighs, deeply, shifting back till her hips meet his. "But let's do it anyway."

Her hands are shaking when she tries to undo his belt, perhaps with cold, perhaps with something else. Gently, he takes her wrists and moves them away, loath to shift the focus onto himself.

“What-” she starts, frustrated, but he quiets her by fitting their mouths together again. He remembers the feel of her lips, wind-chapped, the taste of tequila sharp on his tongue. Memories flicker through his mind; confusing his body, a mix of physical and emotional responses that aren’t even his. 

He rides it out while he pushes her jacket off her shoulders, dragging his thumbs over her nipples which peak through her vest. His hands travel downward, till he finds the waistband of her jeans and slips fingertips inside. He swallows her quiet gasp, cups her cunt through fabric.

Unavoidably, he thinks about the last time he did this. Rogue’s delighted, throaty laugh echoing in the back of his head, sharpening his heartache, hardening his cock. 

Panam ducks her head, panting lightly, her hips grinding involuntarily into his touch. She lets out a pained sound and says, “S-stop that. Just hurry up. Please.”

“Hurry up and what?” he murmurs, not to tease, just checking in, but she takes it as a challenge and sinks her nails into his biceps. 

_Have it your way._ “I don’t have any protection,” he points out.

She laughs, derisive and disbelieving, pulling out of his reach and tossing the rest of her clothes. “Don’t worry about it,” she says under her breath, as if she’s in on a private joke, and a cheery cocktail of unplanned pregnancy and advanced mutations of chlamydia just became the most hilarious thing imaginable. 

Johnny’s about to pursue it, and then he suddenly realizes how much he hates having to be the responsible one. He’s not exactly in a good place, either, and if Panam thinks a bout of rough and risky sex is somehow going to change that, he’s not going to deny her. When he said he’d take care of V’s body, he hadn’t planned on becoming a saint.

He still hasn’t gotten to grips with what feels best. Getting the art of jerking off down takes years of practice and an intimate knowledge of your own body. Knock an inch or two off your cock and everything else is out of whack. But Panam’s hand, cold as it is, still feels despairingly good curling around his erection, and he stops himself from making a soft noise of surprise, instinctively bucking upwards. 

A few cursory strokes and she’s pushing him against the backseats, awkwardly tugging his pants down the length of his thighs. She settles herself over his hips, shuddering when the head of his cock touches her clit. 

Johnny stays still, just lets her take what she wants. He doesn't want to ruin the fantasy. The only difference between him and a doll is his missing implant, except he doesn't need one to take the form that Panam really wants. 

She won't meet his eyes, entire body tense and rigid as she lowers herself down onto his cock, sheathing it in warmth and a pleasure that runs from the base of his spine right up to his brain. 

"Please help me," she grits out. It takes the breath out of him, driving him to get a grip on her hips, shift upwards so he presses in a little deeper.

He doesn't miss the way she winces, the tiny, pained inhalation, the involuntary clench of her muscles around him. 

"Hurts?" he asks, frowning, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. 

She drops her head onto his shoulder, wraps her arms around his neck, and her heartbeat is rabbit fast against his chest. 

Her hips make small, circular motions, almost as if it soothes the pain. He doesn't want to hurt her, but he knows she reviles tenderness when it's coming from him. 

In silent acquiescence, he presses his lips to her neck, and starts to move, losing himself in the primal pleasure of it, until she finally starts to relax. He finds he can coax out a quiet moan when he fucks in deep and steady, laying her down on her back, bracketed by his arms, devoid of kind and tender words, just the sound of skin meeting slick skin. 

Quiet and as low as he can, he warns her he's going to come, sounding shakier than he'd expected. He keeps going until he loses his rhythm, loses his restraint, and goes to pull out. 

Only iron self control and decades of practice ever make that a plausible option. Johnny's made promises before, but more often than not it ends up with one very disappointed customer. 

Not this time. Panam's nails rake down his back, her arms tight around his waist, and she says, "Johnny, wait. Don't."

He can't register surprise. The healthy, virile, primeval part of his brain just registers "permission to mate" and shoots his load inside her, trying and failing to smother his shuddering exhale as she takes him over the edge. 

He's rational enough not to collapse his whole body weight on top of her, but he stares down at her for what feels like a long time before he finally eases out. 

Johnny's never bothered to try and please any conquest with anything other than his godly dick but in this instance he feels obliged to make sure Panam gets something out of it. 

Questioning, he rests his hand on her inner thigh, fingertips brushing against the slick mess he made inside of her. Her fingers quickly close around his wrist and drag it away from her, without so much as a word passing between them. 

Feeling awkward and somewhat guilty, Johnny makes to give her some space. But she tugs him back, and tucks herself against his chest. 

Johnny fixes his gaze over her shoulder, watching vague shapes appear in the shadows as his eyes adjust to the darkness. 

Would it be crazy to say he wished V was here?

She wasn't pretending. She was lonely. She knew exactly who she was fucking. She'd said his name. 

Tentatively, he snakes got one arm around her middle, the other splayed against her stomach. When she shifts closer, he feels her eyelashes flutter against his skin. 

V's skin. 

"Panam," he murmurs. 

She tangles their fingers together, squeezing a little too hard. "Don't say anything," she begs. "For once, just… don't say a word." 

He feels a flash of irritation, irked that she thinks she has any kind of control over him. As if they've reached some sort of truce. 

And then he realizes that they have. 

He swallows, and squeezes her hand back. 

* * *

In the morning, Panam wrenches herself out of his grasp, her face streaked with tears. 

He blinks sleep away, trying to sit up and reach out to her. The sun is too bright, and it lays bare the evidence of their mistakes. 

Panam rocks a little in the cradle of her own arms, looking haunted and hopeless. 

"We're never gonna get him back, are we?" she whispers, moving just out of his grasp. 

Johnny scrubs a hand over his face, feeling useless to offer any kind of false promise. 

"I know he's still out there, in cyberspace. But everything I've done… we've done.. it's not enough." 

Johnny sighs. He tries to take a moment to gather his garbled and sentimental mess of thoughts, looking out the window searching for the right thing to say before he returns his gaze to hers. 

"This is what I’ve been trying to say, Panam. It’s not about how much we care.” He leans forward. “There was nothing I could do apart from killing both of us. Maybe you don’t believe it, but V didn’t want me to die.”

Panam looks away. “I know,” she whispers. “I always knew that.”

“I would have taken his place in a heartbeat,” he says. “But sometimes, we don’t get that choice.”

She looks at him for the first time without steeling herself, without hatred flickering behind her eyes. The spark that V had fallen in love with seems all but extinguished, enough to tug at even Johnny’s worn-out heartstrings. All her body language whispers is defeat. 

He doesn't have to ask to know that making this trip was the opposite of worth it. 

He clears his throat. "So…"

Panam studies her fingernails, frowning at them, picking dust and dirt out from underneath them. Time slows, and it's a long time before she forces the words out, saturated with disgust and self loathing. 

“Just go, Johnny. Just, fucking... go.”

He hesitates, not wanting to leave her in such a sorry state. “I can take you to a motel, get you cleaned up.”

“I said go.”

She keeps her arms wrapped around herself, covering her chest, the tanned expanse of her skin exposed in her legs and shoulders. Wordlessly, he opens the tailgate and leaves her to gather her things.

Panam emerges tucking her gun into the holster at her belt, zipping up her jacket against the harsh and lively wind. She tried to run her fingers through her wild, knotted curls, dab tissue at her eyes till it didn't look like she'd been crying. 

None of it worked. She looks broken. She looks like she's lost the love of her life, and didn't find what she was looking for in the person he'd shared a shell with. 

Not for the first time, Johnny wishes he was dead.

Does she know that? 

He's always hated goodbyes. He can't think of anything to say that won't sound flippant, or cross the kind of lines that are drawn out of necessity. 

As he watches her bike disappear into the distance, he decides that true rock bottom is not caring who's around to see you reach it. 


End file.
